Did You Know?
Infants who received massage therapy versus those who were rocked experienced 1) greater daily weight gain; 2) more organized sleep/wake behaviors; 3) less fussiness; 4) improved sociability and soothability, 5) improved interaction behaviors; and 6) lower cortisol and norepinephrine and increased serotonin levels.
Field, T., Grizzle, N., Scafidi, F., Abrams, S., & Richardson, S., Kuhn, C. and Shanberg, S.(1996). Massage therapy for infants of depressed mothers. Infant Behavior and Development, 19, 109-114.
Preschoolers were given WPPSI subtests before and after receiving a 15-minute massage or spending 15-minutes reading stories with an experimenter. Performance on the Block Design improved following massage, and accuracy was greater on the Animal Pegs in the massage group.
Hart, S., Field, T., Hernandez-Reif, M., & Lundy, B. (1998). Preschoolers’cognitive performance improves following massage. Early Child Development & Care, 143, 59-64.
Four-month-old infants were given either 8 minutes of massage, play, or no stimulation prior to an audiovisual habituation task. Infants who received massage showed response recovery from habituation during test trials, whereas those in the other two conditions did not.
Cigales, M., Field, T., Lundy, B., Cuadra, A., Hart, S. (1997). Massage enhances recovery from habituation in normal infants. Infant Behavior and Development, 20, 29-34.
